I am going on a mule deer hunt in Dec., What would be an a reasonable tip for the guide? Assume guide was helpful, knowledgeable and friendly. Cost of hunt is 2500.
thanks

Welcome to The Forum, hope you enjoy participating on here.
If you will go to the Open Discussion topics section and look at the index for it, we had a fairly long discussion about tipping guides about a week or so back. Check out the responses there as it was pretty well covered.

I need a tip. a tip on how to get hog hunters to come out to the ranch. with gas prices nobody wants to come down let alone pay $ 150 to get a hog.

I don't know but for $2,500 he better get all of the above and more. Hope you get a big one. It will all depend on the experience you have. If you just drive up and kill one, then you won't tip as much as you would if you are spot and stalking for a muey grande for a while.

Not to get any farther off the subject than is necessary, but the big thing is status. To get the folks out to hunt your hogs, or nearly anything else, you will have to attract non-residents.
Most residents hunters can find a place to go shoot a hog or two if they really try.
It is one thing when people are hunting antler, but hogs are a different story. Even at what you are charging, a big trophy boar is going to cost a bunch to get mounted, and it possibly ain't gonna be fit to eat.JMO

$150 is for any size hog, with a 2nd one for 50 bucks. i know most people can find places to go for free. one thing people are starting to figure out, is that big hogs are a pain in the a** to mount, and some places want upwards of $475 to do one.

Most of the guys that day lease from me want to meat hunt. Only a few mentioned mounts and that was to get skull mounts done. One day hunter passed up a monster boar so he could get a meater. I about cried!!!

I think the key to getting people to come hunt hogs is to show them that you can get them on the animal. Either through referrals or from pictures of recent hunts. A guy will pay the gas prices if he has a pretty good idea that he's going to harvest the animal he wants. Show people what you got. Post some pictures of recent hunts. They'll start calling!

That is why, for the most part, we try to attract out of staters for our Javelina hunts. Most average Texans can't or won't spend the money for those types of hunts. One place we have had more success for getting inquiries about our hunts, is in the Gun List magazine.

Randall, what does it cost to advertise? Just curious.

I think, and it gives me a terrible headache to do that without the Redheads guidance and assistance, that for 12 issues, for a two line add, it was $70 and change.
The adds started in July and will go thru Dec. There are 2 issues a month, except Dec. when there will be 3. Over the past 2 years, we have had more calls from that little add in the Gun List than any place else we have tried.

txtrophy85, first step I guess is fill out profile sir so I can see where your located! I am very excited at that opportunity. I am in Kyle Texas (austin)

It sounds like you need to advertise for a big group rate special, like 10 hunters in a group or something. Then they can car pool to your place to hunt and with all of them splitting the gas its not such a burden.

CHC is right about the non-resident versus resident hunters. Not many places up north have the amount of hogs to hunt such as we do and resident hunters know that they can go just about anywhere and find hogs.

Heck, if your retired or active military you can hunt the Escondido Ranch in Freer, Texas for $150 for a weekend hunt, lodging included, no meals. 1 hog a day and your limit on javelina if I remember correctly. I'm going there in February on an invitation from some friends. The place is run by the US NAVY and its 6000 acres. You get put at a feeder with a reflective tape on a pole. You can shoot any hog that matches that height of that tape or bigger. The hogs what will be that tall will usually be at least 80lbs or more. Lots of javelina and coyotes out there to hunt as well. Just watch out for the rattlers!

$300-$500 for tip if all goes well and you get a nice mule deer. If you are going high country, that dude is your life line for saftey too. Should you return for another hunt in the future, that guide will take real good care of you... Typically the land owners and lodges make most of the $ from your hunt, so a good guide tip is always wise....

$2,500 for the hunt and then $500 for the tip on top of that? I would suppose if the guide kept calling you off of bucks saying, "We can find a bigger one," then the tip is reasonable. If he tells you to shoot one of the first animals you see then the $2,500 would be all he earned.

so what you are saying is that if you shoot the first deer a guide puts you on then it's not worth a tip. even though he has spent the last four or five weeks of his life monitoring and keeping up with several animals for YOU. what if the mule is a 190 in. 5x5 that dosen't matter because it was the first animal you saw!!!!!! what kind of Bull @#$$ is that. These guides work there A#$% off for you people and deserve the common respect. They have familys just like you do. And let me tell you that a guide is not a high pay possition. Think about what you are saying. . All these guys think about is giving you the adventure you have dreamed about. and it weighs heavy on their mind and bodys. I know their are some outfitters out there that have crappie guides but most of them are hard working good people that live to see you happy. Think about it just a little!!!!

I thought this subject had died a reasonable death.

As someone who has both been on guided hunts, and has a guided hunt service, let me see what I can throw in here for folks to think about.

Tipping a guide for a job well done, is nice, but any guide there is that is worth a damn, does not go out expecting a tip from a client. If they do, they are in the wrong business.

Lora and I have received some decent tips from some of our hunters, and usually from the ones that couldn't really afford it. We have had people that we worked our butts off for, and that could afford it, not give us a thing.

The outfitter I hunt elk with in Colorado, and who Lora and I have patterened our guide service after, works just as hard to put me on an elk, as he does for those folks that will hand him $500.00.

I think one of the biggest things that needs to be resolved, is the difference between a real guided Big Game hunt, and the 2 or 3 day, Box Blind hunts, that take place in most of Texas.

Some folks seem to have the idea that going out and doing a couple of morning and a couple of evening hunts in a box blind, with someone setting there beside you, telling you which deer to shoot, is a guided hunt. WELL IT AIN'T.

And it doesn't matter if it is on the YO, hunting Exotics.
The people that work there carry radios, and they all know what the various clients are looking for. If one of the "GUIDES" spots something special, they call around and see if anyone has a client looking for that particular trophy.

A guide that works on BLM or National Forest or Grassland areas, does have to get out and put a lot of effort into setting up camps, both main and drop. Sometimes they are able to actually get out and monitor game movement, but a lot of the time, they just try to find areas with less hunting pressure, with reasonable numbers of mule deer and elk, and hopefully a migration route.

Giving a guide of any type, a big tip, for a "LUCK" shot on a trophy animal, on the first morning of a 5 day hunt, is a hollow gesture at best.

A real honest to goodness guide won't want it because in all reality, he didn't do nothing.

I don't feel that someone that has been setting in a tower stand a few evening a week, judging bucks and patterning them coming in to a feeder, is a "GUIDE".

If anyone wants to get upset about my statements, go right ahead. I have been on guided hunts in Colorado and Canada, and have been doing guided Javelina hunts for 4 years now.

As I have said before on this subject, a tip for me, can be in 6, 12, 18, or 24 bottle denominations.

If a person goes into the guided hunt business expecting to make a living off of tips, THEY NEED TO GET OUT.

The only deciding factor, as I have said before, is to just think about how much money you would tip a waiter/waitress, when out for the evening.

On a "REAL" guided hunt, you are out for several days, with people trying to not only keep your butt fed, but also provide you with a warm/dry place to comfortably sleep, and put you on game, even when you aren't physically able to do what you need to do to kill that game when they get you on it. And I ain't talking about handicapped folks here, I am talking about people that arrive in camp, over weight, out of shape, and in a hurry to get back to civilization.

JUST MY OPINION!!!

I've never been on a guided hunt, only guided fishing trips. Using that as my experience I unapologetically stand with what I wrote. I had a Texhoma guide take me for stripers and we fished all day, throwing back dozens of keeper-sized fish because he kept saying he could put us on bigger fish. We literally fished from sunrise to sunset, caught dozens of fish, had a ball and I tipped him generously. I have fished other lakes with other guides who fulfilled their contractual obligation but didn't do anything beyond what they had to do. I left with a kind word of appreciation and gave nothing more than what I had contracted to give.

I am currently working with some friends on a New Mexico guided elk hunt. I am expecting a guide to put me on game that I could not find on my own, reglardless of that being the first animal on the first day or the last animal on the last day. If he busts himself to do it, going beyond what our contractual agreement demands then a tip would be in order. If not, I fulfill my contractual obligation and nothing more.

For whatever it's worth.

I got zero to $100 in tips for guiding fishing trips..did not expect it, but nice to get it. Goose hunts I go on, two days 8 hunters...I tell my group it is min.....non negotiable...they tip $20 a day, so $40 or they do not go.....I hand the guide $320 or more at the end of the two days. he does not own the operation so tips is what helps get him by.


Tip no tip, do what you want and what you think is right, but if I am paying $2500 and they guy puts me on a monster in the first hour, first day, last hour, last day...I am thinking he is going to get $250..to $400 from me. Hunting is hunting, not sure if you will get bigger later, luck...too many factors...if it is high fenced, then tip is not too important as it should be built into price. But somebody who is going to help me get around, tell me this and that in country that is unfamiliar to me.....well worth the tip, not just the kill, but my safety and enjoyment is part of his responsibility.


A tip for a guided hog hunt or a javalina hunt.....heck you should pay somebody to come shoot them.

For the hogs hunts,,,,I suggest you run an add, that says X amount and shoot all you want. I for one will never ever pay anybody to let me shoot hogs or ducks...can too that on my own. Things I cannot do on my own....then they get a tip. I add that my goose hunt, though I have been going with them since 93....I hardly have to life a finger...just put heads on decoys....the guide deserves more tip this year..

I think you as a moderator could have made a better comment than that.
You don't know one thing about our Javelina hunts or how we do them.
Now if it seems like I am taking this personal than you are right.
Lora nor I expect tips from our clients, but until you have brought your butt out there and drag it around those pastures with me for 2 or 3 days, you really have no basis for a comment like that.
I am not sure why you said something like that, but how about I get on the TFF and make some kind of off the wall comment like that about fishing guides.

CHC I have lived in texas for 7 yrs now. prior to that I was born and raised in the Modoc national forest. I have guided hunters from bear and lion to roosevelt elk and rocky mtn elk. I have worked the back country of the bitter root and the lava flows of the pacific west cost. you can base you opinion on a few hunt in the moutains but untill you live it you ought not talk it. I work just as hard here as I did their. we hunt everyting from ducks and geese to exotics and whitetails. we have pheasent and quail preserves and offer giggin' trips on the bay. If you don't think the work and prep work is just as hard here as anywhere you are dead wrong. you keep tabs on 40-50 feeders a month. sit in as many stands as you can each week run 200-350 mi a day scouting geese. so on and so on. I am sure you have a great outfitt and work real hard but when you do it full time for a living you might judge things diffrent. Also your guide should work as hard for you as the next guy and all I know do.and I'm not saying that everyone that tips you should or that everyone that dosent should not. What I am saying is understand that a lot of these guy are not weekend help that are having a good time this is there lively hood and just as all service providers i.e. waitress valet or bag boy a good part of their income is in tips. long and short men. don't judge a hunt buy the kill only. and take care of those who are working their butts off to take care of you.

I do live it Allen. And I still maintain, that sitting in a stand with a client looking over a feeder is not the same as putting someone on to a bull elk or a buck muley on BLM or National Forest ground.

You seem to be taking offense at the idea that some folks have had dealings with that other type of guide, the ones that DON'T put forth a lot of effort in helping their clients get game or have an experience of a lifetime.

You are basing your thoughts on this subject, by the way you do business, do you think that ALL guides put forth the same effort as you do?

What you seem to be not understanding, is that all a lot of folks have experienced, especially here in Texas, are "Weekend Help" guides.

I do agree with the fact that it is the amount of effort that the guides and campstaffs put forth for the clients that should determine if, or how much of a tip a client could leave. Bottom line though, it is all up to the client, if a guide is trying to make a living at it, then the tip should be figured into the hunt price, up front.

As I have said before on this subject, if a person is in the business, for the tips, then they are in the wrong business.

I think everyone would agree on the subject. Tips are not required but are appreciated. Tips are not automatic but result from an investment of time and energy beyond what one might expect. Tips are an expression of genuine gratitude and appreciation, not a required act. Guides who work harder than one might have expected, are determined to put their clients onto the best animal possible, and strive to provide the hunt of a lifetime are well deserving of a generous expression of appreciation in the form of a tip.

On that note I believe it is time to shake hands and go hunting!

Sorry you took offense....many on here take offense to many of your posts about or on all sorts of subjects. However, my comment is fine from the standpoint...that you are not the only javalina guide in the the state of Texas. I would not pay anything to shoot them. Voiced my thoughts like you do on so many other subjects... Sorry I struck a nerve with you and you do not like my venacular, but I really see no personal attack against you. I only see one comment about hogs and javalina hunts in my response.

I can tell you how I shoot them though since I do not know how you do them. I ride in the truck and when I see them, I shoot, sometime I lay down to line up two and get two in one shot. Other times I am in a stand, some I have walked up on and shot at darn near point blank with a pistol. But I have no idea how you run your hunts. If it is tough and you work hard, then maybe you would appreciate a tip?

Well, I did take offense, because even though I am not the only Javelina guide in Texas, I think I am pretty muchily the only one on The Forum, and possibly in the State that specializes in just Javelina.

I don't expect tips, nor does Lora, for all the stuff she does for our clients in cooking meals and keeping the camp in good shape. We do appreciate if a client does give us something, but a Thank You works just as well.

Attitudes like yours, are the main reason why we advertise out of state and don't really try to attract Texans. In Arizona, Javelina hunting is a really big deal. In Texas, even though they are listed as a game animal, they are considered as a trash species by most Texans, and are therefore not hunted on their own terms.

That attitude is not shared by a lot of folks around the country, and is changing somewhat here in Texas.

As for your comment about me being offended by other peoples posts, or others being offended by mine, from what I have noticed, there is not one single member on here that doesn't have someone get offended at one of their posts from time to time.